


Yellow

by Seripa



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Capture, Consent Issues, Gen, Infinity Gauntlet, Mind Stone, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16966440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seripa/pseuds/Seripa
Summary: Tony was so sure he was going to die out there





	Yellow

Tony was going to die here in this little ship floating in space. He had no idea who all had even survived the end. He’d left a message for Pepper, but he knew she had probably died too.

He was a little relieved to know he’d be drifting off in a few hours.

Maybe the oxygen was already failing cause he was already a bit drowsy. He could hear pounding in his head getting louder. 

He just breathed.

The pounding, steady and rhythmic and getting louder, stopped suddenly.

“There you are, Stark.”

Tony looked up at the large purple monster watching him from the doorway.

He’d been hoping for a quiet death, gone in his sleep, but he’d be fine with a quick death instead.

He closed his eyes and sighed. He wasn’t even going to fight this time. Everything was gone and it was his fault. 

“You shouldn’t have left Titan.”

Tony startled when he was lifted from the floor. The arms that held him now were gentle and bigger than he remembered. They held him against a huge chest and he was carried silently out of his drifting coffin and through a portal that was too much like the one above his tower that started this whole mess years ago.

He was put down on a large bed that felt too soft and left alone. 

That purple bastard took his death from him too.

He drifted out for a while and found a glass against his lips. He drank as deep as he was allowed but the glass tilted only enough each time for a sip. After a few minutes of that, he felt something solid pushed into his mouth.

He hated himself for the noise he made when he bit down and the flavor hit his tongue. He saw the Titan smile but he tried to pretend he hadn’t as another piece of what he was sure now was a semi soft cheese was pushed in his mouth.

A man can respond in a lot of different ways to his first meal after near starvation. As far as Tony was concerned, he wanted to either throw it up or sleep it off.  He’d been rationing till almost the very end, floating hungry for weeks. The bits of cheese and what couldn’t be more than a cup of broth felt swollen in his shrunken stomach.

He was maneuvered out of the rank clothes he’d been dying in and lifted against the Titan’s chest again. He was put in a huge tub with a bit of warm water and one huge hand started gently washing him with a soapy cloth.

And damnit, he felt better.

After everything, that hand made him feel warm and comfortable and relieved and he wasn’t sure when he’d started crying but the hand continued washing as heaving sobs tore out of him for the first time since everyone turned to dust and he’d gotten up and went looking for a way off that planet.

The hand had stopped scrubbing and was just holding him upright in its grasp. He got himself together enough to rinse his hair and he was pulled out of the bath like some housewife’s chihuahua and wrapped in a huge towel softer than the ones his mom used to insist were only for his face.

A large toothbrush was pushed in his mouth and he stayed still while his teeth and tongue were cleaned. A small cup of something stronger than he was used to was pushed to his lips with the order to rinse. He did. 

He was carried to the bed and put on one side while the Titan settled on the other. He didn’t know if Thanos would actually sleep but he knew he wouldn’t be a match for even a sleeping Titan.

“Rest, Stark.” Thanos ordered.

Tony felt something tickle at the back of his mind that felt vaguely familiar and was the lighting in here always so sunny? He drifted off to the yellow glow behind his eyelids.

Tony woke slowly to large fingers brushing through his hair. His entire head fit in this man’s palm and he knew he should be scared or angry but he just felt numb. 

He looked up and noticed that Thanos had never taken the gauntlet off. The stones were mostly dark except for the faint glow of the yellow stone he knew had to have come at the expense of one of his robot children.

Thanos noticed him looking and the stone got just a little brighter.

“Be calm, Stark. I won’t hurt you.”

Tony knew he shouldn’t believe that. The fact that he was calm and certain of his safety was proof the Titan was already hurting him with that damn mind stone.

He was lifted up and carried to another room and settled on a huge sofa. Thanos tore off pieces of bread and pieces of cheese and fruit and fed them to him by hand.

“Why?” Tony asked before accepting another bite, not able to put up even a token resistance with the fog in his head.

“I lost everything in my quest for the stones, Stark.” Thanos lifted the glass to Tony’s lips, “You are going to be the first as I rebuild my family.”

Tony couldn’t respond in full between sips but he did manage one word: “Pepper.”

“I spared her. I spared your team and your woman.” Thanos put the drink aside and pushed a piece of bread in Tony’s mouth.

“Not Peter.”

“Quill was not yours to worry about.”

Tony managed to push his head away from the fruit pressed against his lips. “Not Quill. Spider-Man. The kid.”

Thanos paused. “He was yours, then.”

Tony started shaking as the stone struggled to numb his grief and anger. Thanos put the food aside and rubbed Tony’s back like comforting a child.

Tony was lifted in Thanos’s arms as he stood and made another portal back to the dead world where all of this started. He raised his gauntlet and all the stones glowed at once.

Tony watched as the dust reformed and Peter collapsed to the ground whole and alive.

Thanos picked the kid up and carried him back through the portal and put him on the couch and put Tony beside him.

“He will be another of the family.”

Thanos released Tony from the gauntlet’s daze and he immediately reached for Peter. The boy woke up quickly and hid himself between Tony and Thanos like there was anything Tony could do to protect him.

“Be calm, child, I mean you no harm.” Thanos rumbled, “The battle is over. There is no need to fear now.”

Tony took a peek at the mind stone but it was dark. He wasn’t using the gauntlet on Peter yet, but if Peter didn’t calm down that would change.

“Peter, I need you to listen to me.” Tony kept his voice low but had no illusions that the Titan could hear him as clearly as Peter could. “I need you to just go along with this. Don’t fight back unless he tries to hurt you. I’m gonna try to get him to send you home but I don’t want him using the stones on you and for that you need to just do what he wants for now.”

“Mr. Stark? He’s the bad guy. He killed everyone!”

“This isn’t about being a hero, kid. This is surviving.”

“We can’t just let him get away with it!”

“I WATCHED YOU DIE!”

Tony hadn’t meant to yell but he could feel the mind stone soothing him now and honestly it felt a little degrading to be forcibly calmed.

“I can’t do that again.” He whispered.

Peter didn’t protest after that, but kept close to Tony and kept a wary eye on Thanos until the Titan left them alone in the room.

“What does he want with us?” Peter whispered.

“I think he wants minions. He says family but I don’t think he wants people who won’t follow him.” Tony held on to the kid and wondered why he was so against hugging him before everything went to hell. “I don’t think he’s going to let me go, kid. But I hope he can be persuaded to let you go back to Earth.”

Peter didn’t say anything to that. He just held tighter to his mentor and took deep breaths until he had calmed and they heard heavy boot steps approaching.

Thanos came from the hallway and put a large plate in front of the two of them. The broths and bread and cheese and fruit were in sizes they could handle so Tony grabbed his oversized cup of broth and took some long gulps.

“Eat, little one. You fought hard and will need to recover.”

Peter looked even more afraid to be addressed directly but he reached forward for his cup of broth and took a sip that lengthened to big gulps until half the mug was empty. He then reached forward for handfuls of cheese and bread and went to work keeping up with his superpowered metabolism.

Tony was dipping bread in his broth and eating pieces of cheese and fruit at a more sedate pace, keeping aware of any swelling in his still weak stomach. He wished he had a blender so he could blend the fruits and drink them without adding all the bulk to fill him up.

He wasn’t terribly surprised when the Titan stopped him and had him sipping his broth more slowly for a bit. Peter looked at him funny but slowed down as well.

“You were gone longer than you think.” Tony said softly. Peter looked at him with expectation, so he grimaced but continued, “For a while there, I was floating in space trying to keep myself alive on as little as possible and waiting for someone to find me. My stomach can’t hold much right now.”

“He will recover with time.” Thanos said, looking over a holo screen projected above a block he’d placed on the table. “Longer if he makes himself sick.”

Tony sipped his drink slowly.

“So what are we supposed to do, exactly?” Peter asked with his mouth full, “That blue lady was family too, right? But she didn’t seem to like it. What’s being family mean?”

Thanos didn’t look away from his screen, “Your entire purpose here is to be another living being in my life.”

“Oh.” Peter took a drink of the broth.

“If that’s what you’re looking for, you only need one of us.” Tony said, watching the titan’s face, “You can keep me and I’ll go with whatever you’re planning. Just send the kid home.”

Thanos scoffed. “You’re older than any I’ve taken before. You have maybe a few hundred years left before you start slipping away.”

Peter choked on his broth. “He has how long!?”

Tony patted the kid’s back. “Not even Peter has that long. How long did you think humans live?”

Thanks finally looked away from his screen, “A few thousand, at most.”

“We live a little over a hundred at most. Seventy is about average.” Tony watched the purple face for a reaction. “Honestly, we weren’t in danger of overpopulation. If anything, cultures were in danger of being wiped out.”

“They probably are now.” Peter said, putting down a piece of fruit and pushing the tray away. “Was it just people or animals too? Did all our endangered animals just go extinct?”

Tony looked to Thanos, “It has to be just people. If it was animals too, doesn’t the people to resources ratio stay the same?”

Thanos closed his fist and Peter slumped back on the sofa.

“I will not be manipulated, Stark.”

Tony felt the yellow glow creeping in on him. He looked to Peter but the kid was already asleep. He fought as much as he could but eventually lost to the stone as well.

The kid was gone when Tony woke and he immediately panicked. The yellow haze was still there but he wasn’t gonna calm down till he found Peter.

A portal opened into the room and Tony threw the first thing he could reach, a glass of water, straight for where he thought Thanos’s head might appear.

“Settle down, Stark.” Thanos turned the glass and water into bubbles that floated away, “I’ve sent the child to Earth, just as you requested.”

He brought up the screen he’d been looking at before and showed Tony a field and a maskless Spider-Man lying asleep in the grass.

Thanos put the cube beside the bed. “This screen will stay with him. You need only ask to see that he is alive and well, by my mercy.”

Tony watched the breeze blowing the grass against Peter’s face, gently waking him. Thanos didn’t have to tell him that his mercy could run out and Peter could be dust any time Thanos willed it.

“I’ll be good.” Tony whispered. 

“I know you will.” Thanos held Tony’s head in his huge hand and for the first time in days, the light around him wasn’t yellow.


End file.
